Here’s the answer for when you find yourself asking: How do I generate fresh marketing strategies for my orthodontic practice?
By Roger P. Levin, DDS
One of the questions we routinely get at Levin Group is about how to generate fresh marketing strategies. Here is a four-step method to help you design new strategies, and it is much easier than you might think.
1. Analyze your current referral marketing strategies
Look at all your current referral marketing strategies and assess whether you have enough. It is desirable to have five to seven strategies for patient marketing, three to five for parent marketing, 10 to 15 for referring-doctor marketing, 40 to 50 for social media, and four to five for community marketing. This may seem like a lot but remember that your Professional Relations Coordinator will make this program work. Look at the strategies and try to determine which ones are old or tired, and which ones are relevant and effective.
2. Hold a brainstorming session with your team
You want to have at least three brainstorming sessions each year. Open discussions with your team members about the strategies that are working will generate ideas for new strategies. Staff members with children will know what their kids like and that might lead ideas for patient market. Some of your team members know the team members at your referring practices and will know what marketing strategies might be most effective there.
3. Expose yourself to new ideas
Reading business books or articles, marketing articles, even self-improvement materials often leads to ideas that are clever and innovative. The most creative individuals in advertising and marketing intentionally consume a wide variety of information from all areas and frequently combine innovative ideas to create even better ones.
4. Pay attention to advertising and marketing from other businesses
Take notice of how stores merchandise what they are selling when you go out. Look carefully at how you are solicited on social media. Remember, these companies and stores want you as a customer, want to keep you as a customer and want to get you to buy more stuff. Consumer product marketing is not 100% transferable to an orthodontic marketing program, but the ideas you see being used there will lead to really creative and clever ideas.
So, where do you get new ideas? Everywhere! OP
Roger P. Levin, DDS, is the CEO and founder of Levin Group, a leading practice management consulting firm that has worked with over 30,000 practices to increase production. A recognized expert on orthodontic practice management and marketing, he has written 67 books and over 4,000 articles and regularly presents seminars in the United States and around the world. To contact Levin or to join the 40,000 dental professionals who receive his Practice Production Tip of the Day, visit levingroup.com or email [email protected].
